Hi All,
 
I'm very much into shooting HDR for tricky panos with huge dynamic ranges. I have a set strategy for putting them together, but I'm always looking for something more effective or more efficient. My present workflow is as follows:
 
1) shoot bracketed exposures (anywhere from 3 to 9, one stop apart, depending on the dynamic range of a particular scene)
2) produce HDR images at each shooting position (I use Photomatix)
3) tone-map each HDR image
4) stitch the resulting tone-mapped images into a pano
 
The problem is that, sometimes, Photomatix refuses to create a tone-mapped image of a bracketed set of exposures. Photomatix tech support hasn't been able to tell me why the problem persists, and has suggested I stitch a pano for each exposure (one pano for -1 stop, one pano for 0 stop, one pano for +1 stop etc), and then create an HDR of the bracketed panos (and tone-map that). The problem is that my pano head isn't that precise, and I sometimes get a little vibration during bracketing (and therefore would worry about multiple panos of the same scene being slightly different, making the creation of an HDR impossible).
 
I just got an emailed Realviz newsletter which mentioned HDR and Stitcher. A brief look at the website seems to indicate that the strategy with Stitcher 5.6 is:
 
1) shoot bracketed exposures
2) produce HDR images  
3) stitch the HDRs in Stitcher
4) tone-map the resulting file
 
Can anyone comment on the ability of Stitcher to stitch together HDR images? If it can, then that at last would be a compelling reason for me to upgrade from version 5.1.
 
Cheers!
 
Chas

I shoot and stitch panos the way photomatix recommends and even with a little wobble it ends up not being too big a deal. You were gonna get it with your individual files anyways.
 
Something that can really help for doing each pano is:
1: Create a folder for each bracket
2: Name the file in each folder the same for each position
3: Stitch a set of files from a single bracket that will stitch well. Render with "Smart" blending method.
4: Save the file in the folder with the original bracket.
5: Quit and copy the file to the other folders
6: Open the file and note that it's picking up your same named files relative to the stitcher file.
7: Render as many brackets as you want.
8: Generate HDR and Tone map in Photomatix.
 
a couple of examples
http://web.mac.com/m1jackson/iWeb/ [...] 2FE37.html
 
http://web.mac.com/m1jackson/iWeb/ [...] 79DB7.html
 
Cheers
Michael Jackson

Hi Michael, thanks for the reply.
 
Great tips, thanks! (this folder/naming arrangement is something I've been meaning to try out). I'm only using Stitcher 5.1 at the moment, so I'll have to wait until the new version of 5.6 is downloadable before I can take advantage of Smart blending.
 
I particularly like the Malibu shot, thanks for pointing me to it.
 
Chas

FWIW, I've NEVER succeeded at stitching HDR panos at the resolution I'm usually targeting, 8k x 4k. Realviz locks up and crashes down in flame anywhere between the initial stitch and the render.